I often tell my attorney-clients to think of the Rules of Professional Conduct as the Emily Post guide to etiquette for attorneys. The rules provide the dos and don’ts for your conduct in relation to your clients, your adversaries, the courts, nonrepresented parties, your subordinates, your supervisors, your partners and the public. Each rule is followed by interpretive comments to assist in your ability to understand and abide by them. The rules are great in telling you what you must do (answer client’s calls!) and what you mustn’t do (steal!). However, between those absolutes there is a wide range of uncertainty that requires me to tell my clients: I’ll need to think about that one!
Each state’s bar association tries to fill this “certainty gap” with informal and formal ethics opinions. In Pennsylvania, opinions are provided by the Pennsylvania Bar Association committee on legal ethics and professional responsibility and the Philadelphia Bar Association professional guidance committee. Informal ethics opinions are one of the most valuable and overlooked benefits of bar membership—well worth the price of admission. Members can submit “ethics inquiries” for advice on a specific problem and the committee will issue an informal opinion on the presented facts. Also, and this is invaluable, both the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations provide ethics hotlines, staffed by a professional responsibility attorney to answer more urgent questions. PBI also publishes a helpful hornbook on the rules: “Pennsylvania Ethics Handbook,” https://www.pbi.org/ProductCatalog/Product.aspx?ID=2688.
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